Please Welcome IRB Fellow Samantha Pawley!

Samantha is bringing forth some exciting goodness to IRB through her work around Ecotones, Comfort Zones, and supporting the development of Relational Resource Departments

A little under two years ago, I found myself zooming across the Andean Mountains of Peru in a ram shackled Tuk Tuk that two friends and I had spontaneously decided to buy. A whole new world opened to me in this moment, subsequently inspiring me to journey on alone: hitchhiking and letting the destination remain unknown. Often sleeping in strange places - from roadsides to mud floors to a hammock slung up between two trees. On these wild journeys, I was offered warm food to fill my belly, floors on which to sleep, company around fires under the cold night sky. These gifts of kindness would have never been given had I remained an isolated entity on a personal, goal-driven mission. And yet, some months prior, I had been sat on my computer begrudgingly trying to crawl up the ladder of corporate investing. I was stuck in a world of straightness and rigidity, clinging onto a life of direction and goals. Choosing to leave this life behind and pursue one of wildness was a bizarre turn; with the juxtaposition between the two lives seeming uncanny. What I found, though, in this space of breaking ‘straightness’ and opening myself up to the gifts that emerge when we open ourselves up to being in relationship with the world, was something permaculture speaks to in the topic of ‘edges and ecotones’.

Ecotone – “tone” originating from the Greek word tonas meaning ‘to stretch’ or ‘tension’ – speaks to the space in which the edges of differing ecosystems merge on their periphery. With the pulsing of a river into a wetland or a forest petering out into a grassland; a diverse, productive, beautiful tapestry of life is revealed. This is the ecotone: not only holding space for folk from the neighbouring ecosystems but, so too, for unique folk; the creatures of the in-between. A place of magic,

where 1 + 1 = 3.

Mother Nature, by all her will and way, tries to increase these ecotone spaces by prioritising ‘wiggly’ edges over straight ones. A river will meander across a landscape, elongating her edges, creating more opportunities for ecotones to emerge.  But slowly humans have reduced these ecotones. A river straightened and her belly lined with concrete, ecosystems are severed from each other. Merging no longer occurs. Like what we have done to rivers, the edges of humans have also become straight. Where we treat our individual selves as impermeable boarders – preventing the merging of ourselves with other humans and the more-than-human world. As a result, there is a significant lack of ecotone spaces in which diversity, life and miracles can occur.

However, ecotone creation and ‘re-wiggling’ of edges then becomes an exciting place to look for potential in creating ecological change beyond our human imaginations. This became my central inquiry of my MA Ecological Design Thinking with Schumacher College and is now bridging my union with IRB as a fellow. Our world is yearning for wiggly, ecotone-abundant spaces and, on this journey with IRB, I will be exploring and helping to develop IRB’s Relational Resource Department which will dance alongside a term with which we are all familiar: the HR department.

Interestingly so, this is a circling back to where I first began my journey at university: studying an undergraduate degree in Business Science specialising in Organisational Psychology. Through this degree, we learnt to place a disproportionate amount of focus on the human: employee efficiency, employee satisfaction, employee turnover rate. But now, having gone on a wild journey of exploring myself and our beautiful planet Earth, I come back to this original path with new eyes. Instead, I ask if organisations can place focus on relationship: relationship with ourselves, other humans, and the more-than-human world. After all, ecotones can only exist when ecosystems come into relationship with one another.

Drawing on all these experiences, the question I carry into this work in helping to shape IRB’s Relational Resource Department is:

How could we encourage ecotone creation in workplaces in which a gestalt effect of ecologically positive outcomes could arise? Where the whole truly is greater than the sum of its parts.

1 + 1 = 3

As a permaculture designer, I am continually reminded that we can lean on the physical realms to inform us as to how we could translate these concepts into the metaphysical realms. To do this in the workplace, we might first ask:

·       Where are my edges?

·       What are the ecosystems present?

Humans, of course, share physical edges with the world around. Merely looking to our branching lungs, or winding intestines – we see the magic of the ecotones. The dynamic exchange in which the outside world comes into relationship with the inside world, and the inside world comes into relationship with the outside. But when looking at metaphysical edges, what could constitute as an ‘edge’ and/or an ‘ecosystem’? Could we look to the ecosystems between left and right-brain thinking? The in-breath and the outbreath? Moving out of our comfort zones and into the unknown? Or even the ecosystems of success and failure?

Once we have established a baseline sense of edges and ecosystems present, we can then begin to look at leverage points for fostering ecotone creation between them. A powerful tool we use in permaculture (demonstrated by Mother Nature) is changing the geometry of edges. For example, a pond’s edge could be wiggled; maintaining the exact same water surface area as a circular pond but the edge (and thus the ecotone) can literally be doubled:

How could we ‘wiggle’ the edges in our work and organisations to optimise the opportunity for ecotones to emerge?

Although identifying edges and ecosystems is important, to create ecotones is an art form. So too does it take courage and a relinquishing of outcome. A stepping into the unknown. But, we could delve deeper into the qualities of the edges and ecosystems present to make it that much more inviting for ecotones to come to be.

For example, a simple first step would be looking to the Proximity of Edges. When edges of differing entities meet each other, there is an opportunity to cross-pollinate (or trade) across borders. This, of course, first requires the neighbouring ecosystems to be in proximity with each other. Once different ecosystems and, thus, edges are bought together Edge Permeability then becomes of paramount importance. When the edge itself is difficult to move through, an edge becomes a trap where rubbish (or tension) can accumulate.

Now, so often do we avoid ecosystems being brought together for the fear of what might come. Or we try creating conditions of harmony to avoid conflict. But my favourite quality of ecotones is that they thrive between differences. The very etymology of the word ‘Ecotone’ relates to creating tension: Tension between Ecosystems. This means we need to turn up the volume on diversity and differences of neighbouring ecosystems, not turn it down.  Like water and land, diversity and differences create life. Without sufficient tension, ecotones would not be created. This could either occur with sameness; where ecosystems simply merge into one. Or when a weak ecosystem meets a strong ecosystem, creating an ‘overtaking’ of the weaker ecosystem. A great example of this is how our left-brain ecosystems have overtaken our right-brain ecosystems, becoming dominant and preventing ecotone creation from occurring.

Of course, to increase the volume on differences means friction too can increase. From nature, we see Translators who moves Across Edges become important to allow for flow. To make trades between ecosystems, one needs a translator, which is not of either ecosystem but a thing, which acts as the role of ‘connecting the spaces in between’. As humans, we are born into this role. Our territory has always been in the ecotone, where we carry seeds from one ecosystem to the next. Being able to adapt to each habitat and shape it for the next generation. With RRD this may be the most important space we fill in facilitating ecotone emergence.

Although these conditions might give us a guiding path to encourage ecotone creation, one cannot quite hold or control what may emerge. However, what excites me, despite the intangibility of ecotones and edges, is that they are so rooted in our physical world; a world with which we know so well. We know life hums in the ecotone; we can feel it in our bones. It is no wonder humans escape to the beach on holidays or gather along the river sides to have weekend picnics. Or sit in awe and wonder at the setting sun; a reminder that even our planet has edges blurred with the cosmos. We yearn to ecotone and that is why we gather in those very places; they bring us back to what it feels like to be human - not isolated entities, but a part of a greater whole. As such, we can translate the core learnings from Edges and Ecotones across cultures, contexts, boarders and realms. Simply because their very essence is rooted in a universal language – that of Mother Earth.

Whilst this is a work-in-progress and is still an ongoing and ever-evolving inquiry, it has given me a lot of hope in the current ecological crises we are facing. And, from this, a dream of mine is beginning to form: if the RRD can help to re-wiggle current paradigms within organisations, we might be able to encourage or accelerate mankind toward ecological paradigms. Even within the structures of straightness. It takes courage. And it takes bravery. But it gives me so much hope.

***

This brings me back to a time in my life in which all hope had disappeared and, yet an ecotone came to be:

Earlier in the day we had spontaneously decided to buy Giles, our Tuk Tuk.  Having tried (unsuccessfully) to hitchhike out of a village in Peru, buying a Tuk Tuk was our next best idea. £300 and 3 crashes into the mountains later, we were on an adventure of a lifetime. But because the adventure was completely spontaneous, we hadn’t once thought about how we would find food, water, equipment, or accommodation en route. We just had a direction and were heading that way. Having set off late in the afternoon, we saw the day turning to night relatively quickly. A new energy comes with the setting sun and, what once seemed open and freeing, soon became scary. With night came rain and fog. Giles had no lights to show us the way and the wet road raised our hackles - knowing that the breaks of Giles were probably shot too. To try illuminate the road ahead, we whipped out our head torches - one person shining out the back for cars coming from behind and the other shining out the front. Slightly futile but it gave us something to think about instead of being paralysed by fear.

We passed many little dwellings, hoping to find a place for shelter that night. All abandoned. One after the next closed, we started to lose hope. Yearning for the simple things in that moment: dry clothes, some food, knowing we would be able to sleep safely. And then, out of nowhere, a man on a bike found us! He started driving alongside us and told us of a little place around the corner we could find some food and a drink. Instantly our spirits exploded, and it felt like a great adventure again.Winding ourselves down the hill, filled with hope, we eventually got to a restaurant. Freezing cold and exhausted, we went inside and slumped into chairs. The owners of the restaurant - a kind couple - brought us a table full of beers, food, cups of tea and wrapped us in warm blankets – “all free of charge”, they told us. Gratitude filled every bit of our bodies. Not wanting to carry on the journey that night - for fear, exhaustion as well as knowing there was nowhere to go - we asked the couple if we might be able to sleep on their restaurant floor that night. Smiles spread across their faces: we were welcomed with open arms. The next minute we were being told that there was a room prepared for us in the back. In Spanish, “It is not much” they said, “it is just the outhouse for the chicken storage. But it will keep you warm”. That night wrapped up warm, I had a strange mix of nightmares for the journey ahead and peaceful dreams in the gratitude we had found in the kindness of strangers. What a bizarre day we had had - a day I could never have conjured up the morning before. Ecotones, I was beginning to understand, seemed to emerge when we met our edges and headed into the unknowns. Letting magic peek its way into our lives.

Look out, too, for a podcast I will be hosting: ‘Ecotones and Comfort Zones with Samantha Pawley’ where we will delve into the world of ecotones and comfort zones (in case that wasn’t obvious!).